Bipolar Disorder: A Disorder with No Face

70% of Bipolar disorder patients are initially misdiagnosed. Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive disorder, is characterized by dramatic changes in mood. These mood shifts are significant because they drastically impair a person’s quality of life. The mood switches occur between a state of depression and various states of mania. Mania, an abnormally elevated or irritable mood, in bipolar disorder can occur in the form of mild mania, hypomania, or full-blown mania, with side-effects such as: hallucinations, catatonic behavior, aggressive behavior, and many more. This variance in mania led to classification of two different types of bipolar disorder. Type 1 bipolar disorder is diagnosed based upon one or more recorded incidents of mania with frequently occurring depression. Type 2 bipolar disorder is characteristic of hypomanic episodes, usually unknown to or denied by the person afflicted with the disorder, along with major periods of depression.
Bipolar disorder is becoming a more common disorder among young people with an average age of onset being 25. Although research into the treatment of bipolar disorder is promising for the betterment of extending the quality of life of young, because the disorder only afflicts 5% of the total U.S. population funding for bipolar research is small. Another factor which road blocks research into treatment options for bipolar disorder is the fact that the exact causation of bipolar disorder is unknown. Factors such as genetics, physiology, and environment all have an effect on the development and on-set of bipolar disorder.
Treatment of bipolar disorder using FDA approved medication involves focusing on one aspect of bipolar disorder, that is mania. I was quite shocked when I read this fact. I found it surprising that an FDA licensed treatment of bipolar disorder is only required to treat one portion of the disorder and can ignore the other. In order to counter the manic episodes of bipolar disorder the most commonly used drugs are mood stabilizers, such as lamotrigine and carbamazepine. Mood stabilizers are used in treatment because they increase levels of GABA, a major inhibitory neurotransmitter, which reduces reception of dopamine, serotonin, and glutamate neurons. These neurons are excitatory and cause the perception of uplifting, “good” feelings. Mood stabilizers would thus inhibit the over-expression of “good” feelings, thereby taming the manic state in bipolar disorder. The most prescribed mood stabilizer is Lithium. Other treatments for bipolar disorder, which are less effective than mood stabilizers, are antipsychotics and antidepressants.
Further research should be conducted on bipolar disorder in order to not only cure the disorder but also offer researchers a better understanding of how the brain works. The problem facing bipolar disorder research is the fact that the number of people afflicted with the disorder is smaller than other disorders/diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, depression,  and schizophrenia. However, it should be noted that Parkinson’s Disease received little attention, in terms of funding for researching the cure, until Michael J. Fox became a spokes person for the awareness of Parkinson’s Disease. Therefore, if more attention is brought to the forefront of the U.S. people then surely funding for bipolar disorder would improve. There are notable celebrities who have bipolar disorder Russell Brand, Robert Downey Jr, Carrie Fisher, Kevin McDonald, Ernest Hemingway, Mel Gibson, Amy Winehouse, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. These celebrities could do wonders for bringing attention to the research of bipolar disorder if they became figureheads for living with the disorder just as Michael J. Fox did for Parkinson’s Disease.
References:
http://www.statisticbrain.com/bipolar-disorder-statistics/
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/bipolar-disorder/content/article/10168/53771?pageNumber=1
http://www.mental-health-today.com/bp/famous_people.htm
Images Courtesy of Google Images